The subject matter disclosed herein relates to a hover attitude trim method and, more particularly, to the use of a hover attitude trim method for an autonomous vehicle, such as an aircraft, in windy conditions.
Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft may include helicopters or tail sitters. In the latter case, a tail sitter VTOL typically has a fuselage with a nose cone section and a trailing section, wings extending outwardly from the fuselage, an engine supported on the fuselage or the wings to generate thrust and, in some cases, various controllable aerodynamic surfaces. The generation of thrust by the engine in concert with the movement of the controllable aerodynamic surfaces allows the VTOL aircraft to take-off and land vertically and to perform forward horizontal flight. VTOL aircraft may be manned or unmanned and, in the latter case, may be piloted or autonomous.
Piloted vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft will typically be oriented by an operator based on an operational envelope and a desirable aircraft trim attitude. Thus, for a piloted VTOL aircraft where the operator identifies when an unfavorable or high risk landing attempt is in effect by reference to appropriate sensor suites (e.g., a multi-directional low speed air data system) or by derivation of the condition algorithmically, the condition can be mitigated or avoided by the operator via inputted operator commands. By contrast, autonomous VTOL aircraft may not always be capable of understanding that an unfavorable or high risk landing attempt is in effect and as a result may not take action to mitigate or avoid the condition.